


In Which Bilbo Baggins Forgoes Brass Buttons (But Thorin Oakenshield and Company Like Him Better That Way)

by kay_cricketed



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, all the dwarves are flustered by master baggins, if only he had a beard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_cricketed/pseuds/kay_cricketed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo's waistcoat and overcoat have taken far too much abuse. Fortunately, Balin has some spare clothes for him. The rest of the company just hadn't counted on how appealing Bilbo would look in them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Bilbo Baggins Forgoes Brass Buttons (But Thorin Oakenshield and Company Like Him Better That Way)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at The Hobbit kink meme: Can we please have Bilbo being given Dwarf clothes and looking even more homely and lovely and delicious -- er, I mean handsome, to the Dwarfs?
> 
> A link was given with the prompt of a semi-spoilery picture of Bilbo in the second film, wearing a blue dwarven coat: http://cdn1.screenrant.com/slir/h300/http://cdn1.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/hobbit-desolation-smaug.jpg
> 
> This may be more gen than all/Bilbo, but I thought it best to take precautions.

“It is quite finished,” said Bilbo. “You see here—the gaping opening in the seam? Even if I had the means to sew it shut, I don’t believe it would hold past a day of all this rigorous walking and climbing. My poor brass buttons. Perhaps the goblins have found some use for them, after all.”

“Probably melted into metalwork,” Kili said.

“Or perhaps one uses them as replacements for his teeth,” Fili said.

Bilbo frowned at them, ruined waistcoat drawn over his lap like a map or a warming blanket. The firelight was low and smoldering; as darkness fell on their makeshift camp, Thorin had instructed them to let it die, withering in its own ashes as a precaution against other wandering folk in the wood. As such, the light was pitiful and made Bilbo’s study rather difficult. He fingered the rips and snags of fabric in what was once a very fine garment, purchased from the best seamstress in the Shire for splendid occasions and summer travel. Of course, a delightful picnic in the meadows was a far cry from the traveling Bilbo had aspired to, and it was no wonder the poor thing hadn’t held up for very long.

Regardless, he mourned its ruin. “My coat is a lost cause, as well,” he said in frustration. “It still smells of troll.”

“I will vouch for it, Master Baggins!” called Bofur, who was sitting on the other side of the fire and whittling a tiny horse made of oak.

“Yes, the whole camp can vouch for it,” Kili said with a laugh. He was often the most merry of the company, though he paid dearly for it when their leader was in a foul mood. “It has been our constant companion as we lay to sleep.”

Oh, that was a bit much. Bilbo scoffed at him and held the waistcoat protectively to his stomach, smoothing out the wrinkles best he could. “Perhaps I can at least make a few pocket handkerchiefs out of this,” he said with some optimism. “I wish I’d thought to bring clothing to spare. I don’t suppose it’s easy to find hobbit-sized attire on the road.” He looked at Kili and tapped the side of his nose. “And by that, I do mean it’s exceedingly difficult.”

Kili winked and tapped the side of his nose, as well. “Fortunately for you, Master Baggins,” he whispered, “we are of similar stature. I do believe Balin may have brought an extra coat, at the least.”

Oh. Well, that was a spot of good news. Bilbo brightened and drew his waistcoat and overcoat around his arm, standing from his place by the fire. Things had changed—and for the better—amongst the company of Thorin Oakenshield since their escape from the pale orc and his wargs. No longer did he feel so ostracized; in fact, the dwarves had been considerably warmer to him in spirit, perhaps charmed by his desperate attempt to keep Thorin’s unconscious body safe from his enemies. Whatever the reason, Bilbo would not question it. He much preferred the cheerful companionship of Fili and Kili, who remained close on either side of him as they traveled, and the kindly way Bifur held back sharp shrubbery from hitting him in the face. Only the other day, Gloin had smiled at him for the first time in—well, ever.

It was his confidence in this newfound camaraderie that lent Bilbo the courage to walk up to Balin, who was blowing smoke up into the leaves and watching it dissipate, to ask for aid. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

Balin raised a bushy eyebrow at him, but at least he was ever-smiling in a grandfatherly way. “Pardon given, Master Baggins. How can I be of service to you?”

“Well, it’s only—I’m in a bit of a pickle, you see. I’m afraid my waistcoat and overcoat are quite ruined.” He lifted them for display and felt absurdly as though he were thirty years younger, having ruined a pair of new shoes or dirtied his face. The need to apologize for being sneezed on by a troll, chased by a raging fish-man through the caverns, and tumbled down many a hill came upon him, but Bilbo resisted with all his might, though apologies came easily to a hobbit’s lips. “The days are growing somewhat colder and I am certain mountains are drafty.”

“They are,” Balin agreed, pleasant as ever.

“I don’t suppose I might trouble you—only if it _weren’t_ a bother, of course—but if you _did_ have a spare coat that might fit a thinning hobbit, I would be greatly in your favor.” He paused, but found he had nothing more to say. “Yes. Just so.”

Balin coughed out a swarm of white-blue smoke. He eyed Bilbo from toes to head, rubbing his chest. “Hrrhm,” he said.

“Had I money, I would pay you,” Bilbo apologized. He’d forgotten entirely his resolve not to (apologize, that is). “When I’m home, it will be a simple task.”

“I might have something,” said Balin. “Though it will still be long at your waist, I believe.”

He bit down on his pipe, teeth clacking, and bent to his pack. For a scarce few minutes, he rummaged around in its depths and grunted. Then at once he straightened again, holding out a patchwork coat of deep blue and graying, frayed cuffs. “Arms, Master Baggins,” he ordered.

Bilbo set his dirtied garments on a nearby log and offered his arms up. One arm, then the other, and Balin’s touch was efficient but gentle. It had been a very long time indeed since anyone had dressed Bilbo—not since his mother, summers long past and her fierce merriment faded from the hobbit hole—and he laughed a little when Balin tugged the coat shut from his sides, which were ticklish. Warmth enveloped him immediately, the lining thick and weathered. The coat felt well-loved and worn to its workings, which had a peculiar effect in that Bilbo felt… well, a bit loved and familiar himself.

(Silly thoughts, really. This was what came out of letting out his Tookish side; it was all nonsense and cotton between the ears.)

“Ah,” said Balin. He looked at Bilbo in a strange way.

“It’s not a bad fit, is it?” Bilbo said, pleased. He patted his hips and stretched his arms out, rolling his shoulder blades. “Very warm. Yes, very warm! I can’t thank you enough.”

“Belt,” said Balin. He bent to the pack again.

Dark fell upon the camp in its entirety soon after, so Bilbo did not get a chance to show off his new finery—homely and altogether dwarfish as it was—to his friends. Instead, he enjoyed a sound sleep with his new belt clasped to his cheek, the softened leather and its weavings a pleasant texture. How strange it was: in the Shire, Bilbo would have had his pick of any garments and he would never have been so grateful for dirty, used coats and belts and the like. But here, they meant everything. He no longer missed his brass buttons so severely.

 

Thorin woke early and scouted ahead in the morning fog. Wisps and vapors clung to his boots as he moved through the trees, listening for some noise beyond the trill of red-winged blackbirds and the rustle of small animals emerging from their burrows. He found himself satisfied of their safety and returned to camp with an eye toward pushing the company onward to the Lonely Mountain as soon as possible. Where there was time to be had, it ought to be spent in journey.

He found his companions in an unusually silent cluster, already awake from their dreams of gold and home. “Come!” he called. “Are the bedrolls already packed?”

The collective group turned and stared at him, wide-eyed. Dwalin scratched his head and Bofur was tugging his hat’s flaps down over his cheeks in a compulsive, anxious manner. Nori flapped his hands as if he were swimming to the surface of a lake, or as if he could simply not find the words to describe the sensation of swimming to the surface of a lake. It was such a strange vision that Thorin checked behind him, in case some visage had followed him from the woods, but there was nothing.

“Thorin! We’ve found provisions!” Bilbo said cheerfully, coming out of the tree line with his arms full of shriveled apples. Balin followed close behind him, mouth pursed as if he were fighting back a chortle. And indeed, Thorin understood why.

Someone had given the hobbit a dwarven coat and belt.

Bifur, whose tentative gestures were becoming bolder (and slightly rude) in their discourse, leapt up to help carry the apples. Fili, Kili, and Ori—the youngest of their company—had fallen into whispers. This was not good.

Cheeks flushed and curls damp, Bilbo approached Thorin and offered him one of the apples. “This should be a lovely snack,” he said. “Do you think we’ll come across more in this forest?”

“We’re not here to eat,” said Thorin. “Pack what you’ve found, quickly. We need the early start this morning has afforded us.”

He forced himself to forget the slightly mulish expression on Bilbo’s face—he would surely regain his spirits on the pathway—and scowled at the rest of the company. “Will the bedrolls pack themselves?” he demanded.

They moved.

Crisis averted. A few glances and stumbles along the road would not rouse Bilbo’s suspicion; he did not often notice attention paid to him. And if Thorin himself looked on the hobbit more often—the blue that brought out the copper in his hair and the dark gleam of his eyes, the homely dwarven coat and its earth-stained sleeves far more suited to Bilbo’s practical disposition—no one would dare mention it. To say he didn’t make a handsome picture would be false, but more satisfying yet was Bilbo’s visible care of the clothing, which he mended every evening and took great pride in.

Of course, coats and tunics soon mattered little in their adventures. However, Thorin would later search half of the halls of Erebor for a small shirt of mithril, confident in a most aesthetically pleasing and honorable keeper.


End file.
